Tillman Case A Highlight For Connecticut Innocence Project

James Tillman shares his impressions of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird with inmates at Cheshire Correctional Institution on July 26, 2007.

James Tillman shares his impressions of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird with inmates at Cheshire Correctional Institution on July 26, 2007. (Patrick Raycraft, Hartford Courant)

CAROL RIORDAN

"A gift" is what James Tillman calls the 18 years he spent in prison on a wrongful conviction.

Sentenced for rape, assault and robbery, Tillman was the first person in Connecticut to be exonerated with post-conviction DNA testing through the efforts of the Connecticut Innocence Project. Tillman's book about his incarceration, release and redemption, "The Power of Conviction," is scheduled to be published in the spring.

Tillman's experience influenced the debate on the death penalty, which was repealed in Connecticut in 2012. The Innocence Project's work has led to the reform of the state's criminal justice procedures regarding eyewitness identification.

For the lawyers who started the project a decade ago, their work to gain freedom for Tillman and others was a highlight of their careers.

The Connecticut Innocence Project began with two lawyers, Karen Goodrow and Brian Carlow, public defenders in the Capital Defense and Trial Services Unit who were working on capital felony cases. The national Innocence Project had been founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing.

Goodrow was dogged in her work on behalf of Tillman. "She fought for me like I was her own child," Tillman says.

Goodrow and Carlow were a perfect fit for the Innocence Project. "Karen has always had an incredible skill set for post-conviction," says Carlow, now the state's deputy chief public defender. "I had done a lot of DNA work and dealt with the forensics."

Tillman's case hinged on misidentification by the victim, who had been carjacked in a parking lot outside a Hartford bar, beaten, raped and robbed. She picked Tillman out of a police photo lineup and also identified him during the trial as the man who attacked her.

A forensic analyst testified at the trial that blood serum testing of semen on the victim's dress could have come from Tillman, as well as about 20 percent of the male population. Sophisticated DNA testing techniques were not available at the time, but the victim's pantyhose and dress had been collected at the hospital after the crime.

"The DNA universe changed drastically in '96," says Carlow. "It used to be that you needed a lot of DNA and it needed to be in really good shape. Now, you can have a fraction of the amount, and it can be pretty degraded, and you still have a chance of detecting a profile."

There was only one obstacle to pursuing post-conviction DNA testing — the pantyhose and the dress were missing. "We knew that the evidence went to another lab in the early '90s," says Carlow, "but the evidence was not returned to the court clerk's office, which is where is should have been."

After pursuing a number of leads, Goodrow discovered that Greater Hartford Legal Aid handled the case for a period of time. When she called their office, the legal aid contact confirmed that they had a box marked "Tillman," but said it was probably nothing she wanted. Goodrow thought it might provide another clue to the missing evidence and talked Carlow into going with her to pick up the box on a Friday afternoon.

When the two attorneys opened the box at the legal aid office, they found a mailing envelope inside. It had the return address of a New York DNA testing facility. "The envelope was old and it had a hole in it," says Carlow. "We could see that the material inside was black." The attorneys knew that the victim's pantyhose and dress were black. "We both looked at each other," says Carlow, "and we thought, 'This is it.'"

The trial court agreed to review the case based on new DNA testing of the evidence. The results excluded Tillman from all of the semen samples. Tillman was released in June of 2006 and exonerated a month later.

Research has shown that administrators of police lineups give inadvertent verbal and non-verbal cues to a witness when they know who the suspect is. When photographs or people are presented in a group, a frequent result is the identification of the suspect who most closely resembles the perpetrator — regardless of whether the suspect is the right person. Goodrow testified in favor of using double-blind, sequential live and photographic lineups, practices that the state now follows.

Goodrow, sworn in as a judge last year, has served as a Superior Court judge in New Haven's family court division since May. "In family court you're dealing with the most intimate aspects of people's lives," she says. "It's very emotional for the litigants. You're seeing a snapshot of good people at a bad time in their lives."

Tillman, now a writer and inspirational speaker, is pursuing a bachelor's degree in Human Services at Goodwin College.

"It doesn't surprise me that he's gone on to do these wonderful things because he was not burdened with anger and resentment," says Goodrow. "He is the true embodiment of forgiveness, and in that way I'd like to be more like him."